Do we need bilingual service in St. John’s or Vancouver?

On tonight’s program I’ll be taking a look at bilingualism. The feds are out consulting again and you won’t believe some of the areas they are going to in their push for the Trudeaupian vision of bilingualism.

The facts don’t support this giant waste of money. Make sure your voice is heard by clicking here and taking the online survey. Answer each question thoughtfully and politely but make sure you answer.

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28 comments

Seems that you made your opinion up already by the way you phrased your preambule. Having 2 languages in Canada is important and distinguishes the country from the USA. Having grown up in Ontario and travelled throughout this country, one could easily argue that English Canada is a cultural extension of the United States. American pop culture rules the North except for Quebec that is truly the only unique major cultural feature of Canada. So take away bilingualism and your left with USA north. I know there’s health care, but health care does not a nation make. Either take our 2 languages seriously or admit that Canada is 1 country: Quebec. Welcome to America!

When the term “bilingualism” is used, it’s assumed you mean English/French.
In Vancouver, would not the Chinese or those of Hindu or Sikh ancestry
vastly outnumber any of those who might speak French?
Would it not make more sense to have one of those as a second language
if we are to have bilingualism forced upon us. What about Yellowknife?
A second language might be Dene. Or maybe Ottawa where they speak
” meathead”.

When the term “bilingualism” is used, it’s assumed you mean English/French.
In Vancouver, would not the Chinese or those of Hindu or Sikh ancestry
vastly outnumber any of those who might speak French?
Would it not make more sense to have one of those as a second language
if we are to have bilingualism forced upon us. What about Yellowknife?
A second language might be Dene. Or maybe Ottawa where they speak
” meat head “.

When the term “bilingualism” is used, it’s assumed one means English/French.
In Vancouver, would not the Chinese or those of Hindu or Sikh ancestry
vastly outnumber any of those who might speak French?
Would it not make more sense to have one of those as a second language
if we are to have bilingualism forced upon us. What about Yellowknife?
A second language might be Dene. Or maybe Ottawa where they speak
” meat head “.

There are two ‘official languages’ in Canada. That is part of our constitution, thanks to politicians. If there is more french spoken in a province according to the census record, then the official language of that province should be French – and vice versa.

Quebec is not bilingual – they are not allowing English to be used in many ways. I have no problem with that. If you want to live in Quebec – learn French. But there is no reason why French should be imposed on people in any other province.

When the English beat the French on the Plains of Abraham, there was Quebec and English Canada. That’s two languages. French in Quebec, English in the rest of Canada.

Yes, it is a total waste of money and unnecessary here in BC. According to Scott Gilchrist it is necessary in order to distinguish us from Americans, which indicates a sad state of affairs in my view. I, as a Canadian, whose first language is French, do not need to base my Canadian identity on being different from Americans or any other nationality. Switzerland has four official languages, but no Swiss thinks his or her identity is dependent on that. A national identity is not based on artificial or false constructs such as “bilingual from coast to coast”. The reality is that only Quebec is allowed to establish its language policy while the rest of Canada is forced into this artificial bilingualism concept.

Quebec has decided that we don’t need Bilingualism. They want unilingual French in Quebec, so where is the logic of spending the trillions of dollars we have spent since the liberals brought it in? With the money wasted (Canada is no closer to being bilingual now than it was then) we could have fixed medicare, raised the old age pensions for everyone, and lowered tuition fees in Canadian universities. Now try to argue against that. If you do you are part of the Canadian problem.

The British North Americ Act of 1867, clearly outlined the fact that Canada was to be an English-speaking NATION, not a BILINGUAL one.

But article 133, stated that French was permitted in the Federal Parliament and in the courts when required, but that was deliberately translated to mean BILINGUAL by Pierre-Elliott Trudeau and his band of METIS pseudo patriots. But, Trudeau then came with his plan for Kebec to be a UNILINGUAL province, while he wanted English-speaking CANADA to be BILINGUAL. This man was the devil incarnate and destroyed CanaDIAN UNITY..v

I fail to understand why some people think that because we live in Quebec, we should be forced to speak only the language of the minority. I am Canadian and should be allowed to speak both English and French anytime I want to or any other language for that matter ! Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself and no, I did not choose Quebec, it was chosen for me and not everyone can just pick up and leave for various reasons.

Forced languages and bilingualism is not the answer !!! You will regret !! Please believe me !!

Let’s see the contrary. If English was in minority in Canada and French would reprensent the majority, you would like to be served in your language. Anglophones in Quebec are in minority and they can be served in English as well. When you talk about Francophone, do not forget that a lot of them live in NB, Ontario and Manitoba.

I am Francophone, proud to be Canadian, probably more than most of my fellow, and I wouldn’t want that France has won the Canada, because this country wouldn’t have been as rich and prosperous with the ideas and efforts of our various cultures, including of course our first nations.

For me, a real Canadian should speak both national languages, at least at a certain level, and respect our Constitution. This document has been made with the influence of all cultures forming this beautiful country. English Canadian are not American because of those influences.

All Canadians should have the right to services in every province in both official languages. I’m a unilingual English speaker and for the life of me I can’t understand why either the separatists in Quebec or the anti- French in other provinces continue to perpetuate this debate. Let’s just get over it and move on to important issues.

NO… Bilingualism is a farce and total waste.
I am trilingual but officially in Canada I am unilingual, because I don’t speak French.
Stop Wasting My tax money for a tiny minority of people that simply want to make a point. A dumb point at that.

we do not need billingual services in st john’s or vancouver. why is it that all road signs in provinces other than quebec are bilingual but in quebec they are unilingual.
save billions of dollars most french outside quebec speak english so what is the problem. a miniscual amount of the population didctates to the rest of the population that they must speak french wake government

i beleive this pushing french on everybody is the biggest waste of money,as long as somebody in any goverment dept can answer in french thats all is required ,doesn’t mean everybody has to speak french.why is it that every sign outside of quebec has to be in both languages except quebec .stop wasting our money

We all complain in Canada about how much more expensive products are in Canada than in USA. Do we realize how expensive it is to have all labels in English and French? Do you really think that manufacturers are going to just absorb that cost?

I learned French in high school here in Alberta because I needed to be able to “get by” in bilingual Canada. I have never used it and until this last summer my husband of 40 years didn’t even know that I could speak and understand French. I have had more contact with Dutch speaking people in our community. I would be better off to have learned their language.

David, the debate continues because there is no need to provide services in every province in both official languages. It is a waste of money and frankly, in any area of the country with very small numbers of minority language speakers, it is clear that the minority language speakers are perfectly able to converse in the language of the majority or they couldn’t reasonably live in that area.

Let’s dump the fraud of Pan-Canadian bilingualism once and for all and move on to important issues.

I live in NB. The only official bilingual province in Canada. We have two school boards, two health system and the push is on for more dual systems. A province with less the 900 thousand people can ill afford to do this and we are going further and further into dept . It is also apparant that most postions are being filled by French bilingual personell than by English bilingual personell. Even our smallest villages with no French are being forced to translate all documents into French. Canada do not go down this rout as it is impossible to appease two cultures as one will always state that the other is getting more so the mountain of dept just keeps on growing and growing.

BILINGUAL? They sent Moore to Vancouver airport to see if any of the custodial staff spoke French. What a joke. They don’t even speak English.
Too bad that Pearson never had any cojones when the Frenchies said in 1962, “Give us the money or we are leaving”. What could have been.

You can go to Valleyfield Quebec an not see one English sign
or let alone find anyone that can talk to you at walmart there
They hate the English, so why go there they are racist, an if your English an try to get a government job even though your bilingual your chances are slim to pass the French exam but a French speaking person who can barely speak English passes the exam an gets the job, Try an call some federal government agencys an 90% of the time it will be French first an then someone will come on barely able to speak English, no wonder people are fed up, good nurses leaving or going out west because they are not French speaking good enough to pass the French test–30 years of French immersion –Trillions wasted–you want to be bilingual learn the language yourself an pay for it!Canada is not a free country when you force the majority of the people to learn the language of the minority or else you cant find a job in government-hospitals an even stores an restuarants -getting very bad in eastern Ontario

I work in the Federal Government. I am in a unilingual position. I can’t get a promotion unless I am bilingual so for those of us that can’t speak French, the morale is low because there is no where to move up. Every team leader is Francophone in my office. It makes no sense because every Francophone is bilingual but they have to have a right to be supervised by a French speaking employee. It has created a wall between the French and the English because anytime there is a promotion advertised, the Anglophones can’t apply. We are heading for a day in the near future when the country will be governed only by Francophones. So much for language duality – nothing fair about French/English bilingualism.

I agree with most of these comments- learning french and having all of these french services is a waste of our money when we have such a high deficit. this money could be used to pay it down.english is the working language of the world and so should it be for other matters too.

hi, i think it is time to scrap all this bilingual nonsense .it should only be used when numbers warrant. however if someone requires to be served in french this can be accomodated without making everyone/everything bilingual this should not be part of job application . which should be based on merit bg

Here is what we have to show after spending hundreds of billions of dollars on bilingualism over the past 4 decades: a Quebec that is more francophone than ever (you can’t even get a vehicle registration form in English) and a federal public service where most jobs have “bilingual” as the top job requirement, resulting in a huge over-representation of francophones in the workforce. This was not the case 30 years ago.

Are we insane?

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Brian Lilley is the host of Byline on Sun News Network and a senior correspondent for Sun Media's Parliamentary Bureau in Ottawa. His weekly column is published in more than 30 daily newspapers across Canada and he appears on several leading talk radio stations.